The object of the present invention is a method and apparatus relating to the preambles of the independent claims presented below.
The invention relates in this case especially to a method and apparatus for controlling the drying process taking place in the dryer section of a paper machine in such a way that an advantageous drying process is obtained from the viewpoint of quality and/or energy costs.
Paper webs have for long been dried mainly by means of drying cylinders, a large number of which are fitted in succession in the dryer section in one or two, or even more, rows situated on top of one another.
When drying with drying cylinders, the drying energy is obtained from the hot steam by means of which the cylinders are heated. In the dryer section the cylinders are combined into cylinder groups, typically into groups of 3 to 8 cylinders. Pressurised, saturated steam is passed through the cylinders in each cylinder group at a pressure calculated in advance for the cylinder group in question. The exhaust steam that has flowed through each cylinder group and the condensate are passed to the condensate tank, from which the steamxe2x80x94now at a lower pressurexe2x80x94is passed to the next cylinder group. In this way, for example, live steam fed to the dry end of the dryer section at a pressure of 3 bars can be passed on through all cylinder groups in the dryer section, towards the wet end of the dryer section. In the first cylinder group of the dryer section the pressure is typically below atmospheric pressure. If necessary, that is, in order to obtain the desired pressure, live steam can be supplied to the various cylinder groups in addition to the exhaust steam.
Drying is controlled by regulating the pressure of the live steam supplied to the dryer section. Control may take place manually or automatically. The efficiency of the dryer groups is typically controlled on the basis of a recipe, such as cascade control, which is guided by the dry matter content of the web coming out of the dryer section. The recipes used are recorded set value recommendations which have been found to be advantageous from the point of view of the quality of each paper grade respectively. However, the operational point of the process varies during production, which means that the set values would have to be adjusted continuously. Generally, adjustments to set values required by changes in the drying process are not made until the measured quality values change to the extent that they go beyond the limits set for them.
Drying with drying cylinders in its present form functions relatively wellxe2x80x94it has been possible to increase the speeds of paper machines and runnability has improved thanks to closed draws. The great length of the dryer section has, however, still presented a problem, as it incurs considerable construction costs. Neither has cylinder drying always been considered sufficiently effective. The aim has, therefore, been to find new and more efficient solutions for web drying.
For some time now, infrared heaters have been incorporated in the dryer section, the said heaters being, however, used mainly for controlling the cross direction profile of the web.
Air impingement drying, that is, evaporation drying carried out by blowing hot air or other suitable hot gas, such as superheated steam, towards the web, has proved to be an efficient drying method. Air impingement can, for example, be directed at the web as it travels, supported by the dryer wire, across the surface of a large vacuum roll, cylinder or other likewise linear surface, as disclosed for example in the Applicant""s earlier Finnish patent applications FI 971713, FI 971714 and FI 971715. In air impingement, high-speed hot air jets or, for example, jets of superheated steam, are blown from a hood covering the said surface towards the web being dried, which travels on the said surface. Air impingement thus brings about a powerful evaporation drying effect. An efficient ventilation effect for blowing off the humidity that has evaporated from the web is also achieved by means of air impingement. The drying energy required for air impingement is obtained, for example, from natural gas or another suitable fuel which can be used for heating the impingement air. Air impingement also requires blowing energy, electricity, for circulating the air in the drying device, that is, for blowing the hot air towards the web and for removing humid air from the area surrounding the web.
By means of air impingement devices, it has been possible to improve the efficiency of drying taking place in the dryer section considerably. Due to more efficient drying, it has been possible to shorten the dryer section correspondingly. Moreover, by means of air impingement, the drying conditions can be changed much more rapidly than by means of drying cylinders.
However, the control of drying in the dryer section is not under the control of the process controller in a manner that would be desirable. The recipe-based set-value control of adjustments is not a sufficiently effective tool for controlling more efficient drying and for taking into account the drying requirements at different points of the dryer section. Neither do recipe-based adjustments take the cost factors relating to different forms of energy into account.
The aim of the present invention is, therefore, to achieve an improved method and apparatus for controlling the drying process in the dryer section of a paper machine.
The aim is more particularly to achieve an improved method and apparatus which allow better than before for the different drying requirements at different points of the dryer section and the cost factors relating to different forms of drying energy.
A further aim is to achieve a method and apparatus, which allow both for quality requirements and for cost factors in drying control in the different parts of the dryer section.
In order to achieve the above aims, the method and apparatus relating to the invention are characterised by what is specified in the characterising parts of the independent claims presented below.
Controlling the drying process taking place in the dryer section of the paper machine so as to be optimal from the point of view of quality and costs can, according to a typical method relating to the invention, be carried out as follows:
a method known as such is first used to calculate the total power requirement of the dryer section, which in this application refers to the amount of energy transferred to the web in order to effect the evaporation desired. The total power requirement can be determined on the basis of the total evaporation requirement.
Typically, total evaporation, that is, the amount of water to be evaporated, is calculated from the difference between initial moisture content and desired final moisture content, when the production rate is known.
Total evaporation can also be calculated on the basis of the amount of water discharged with the exhaust air from the dryer section, that is, by measuring the flow and humidity of the exhaust air, when the flow and humidity of the supply air are known.
On the other hand, the value of total evaporation can also be calculated by using physical and mathematical models known as such, when the process parameters are known.
The dryer section is then divided according to the paper grade, into imaginary drying segments, which behave differently as to drying or evaporation, or some other quality criteria. In this specification, the division of the dryer section or the division of the drying process has been described by the term xe2x80x9csegmentxe2x80x9d. Alternatively, the terms xe2x80x9cstagexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cphasexe2x80x9d could also have been used.
The first segment typically covers that part of the dryer section in which the web is heated to a temperature advantageous for evaporation. In this first segment, little evaporation takes place, nor is a high evaporation efficiency required in this segment. The next, that is, the second segment typically covers that part of the dryer section in which the free water, that is, the readily evaporable water in the web, is evaporated from it. A high level of evaporation takes place in the second segment and thus also the requirement for evaporation efficiency is high. In addition to free water, there is water between the fibres and inside the fibres in the web, this water being more difficult to evaporate from the web. The third segment of the dryer section typically covers this part of the water which is difficult to evaporate and requires a higher amount of energy in relation to the amount of water than in the second segment. In the last segment of the dryer section, no significant amount of evaporation typically takes place. In this fourth segment, the aim is often only to adjust the cross-direction profile of the web in terms of drying or to regulate other properties of the paper, such as curl.
The division into drying segments can be decided, for example, on the basis of drying simulations known as such. By means of drying simulations, it is possible to determine approximately where the different types of evaporation zones are physically located and to divide the dryer section on the basis of this into drying segments.
The division into segments may also take place in such a way that an optimal evaporation distribution is first compiled in a manner known as such and limit values are calculated for the desired, typically at least two, controlled variables of the dryer section, after which the dryer section is divided on the basis of these limit values into segments, so that in two adjacent segments the limit value of at least one controlled variable is different. If necessary, the division into segments can be changed, for example, for the duration of start-up.
The optimal evaporation distribution required can be compiled, for example, on the basis of a recipe or by utilising a machine-direction quality model or quality profile, when the geometry of the dryer section, the process parameters required, such as machine speed, paper grade and total evaporation required, are known.
In a dryer section comprising at least one drying cylinder unit and at least one air impingement unit, the pressure of the steam supplied to the drying cylinders, which affects the temperature of the cylinder, and the temperature of the blowing air, the speed of the blowing air, the humidity of the blowing air and/or the distance of the blow box from the web are typically used as controlled variables. The upper limit value of the steam pressure is determined, for example, by the adhesion of the paper to the surface of the drying cylinder, and the upper limit value of the temperature of the blowing air by the desired brightness of the paper. In the actual running situation, the controlled variables are adjusted in each drying segment within the calculated limit values.
According to the invention, the dryer section is typically divided into at least three different imaginary drying segments. In at least one, typically in several, drying segments there are dryer units using at least two different forms of energy and/or at least two separately adjustable dryer units using the same form of energy. In one drying segment there may thus be, for example, conventional drying cylinders and one or more air impingement units, in which case both steam and, for example, natural gas and electricity are used in the segment to effect drying. In another drying segment there may be drying cylinders and an infrared dryer, in which case steam and electricity are used in that segment. On the other hand, a segment may also comprise drying cylinder groups only. According to the invention, this type of segment is controllable if at least two of its cylinders can be adjusted independent of each other, that is, if two of its cylinders are provided with separately adjustable steam feeds. In a dryer section provided with a twin-wire draw, the upper and lower cylinders, for example, can be adjusted separately. A segment in the dryer section may of course comprise, for example, only one air impingement cylinder unit. If so desired, individual dryer units can simply be shut off.
If so desired, a larger segment, for example, the second segment described above can further be divided into two or more smaller segments, if this is advantageous from the point of view of optimisation as described below.
Once the dryer section has been divided into the imaginary drying segments, the calculated total drying efficiency is divided by means of a method known as such between the above-mentioned drying segments, so that the proportion of the drying power allotted to each drying segment will guarantee a good drying result in terms of the quality of the web being dried. For different paper grades the division may take place as a recipe-based offline calculation according to tables, that is, according to previous runs which have been found good.
It has now also been found that the energy costs of the dryer section can be minimised by optimising the energy costs within each drying segment according to the form of energy. In other words, it has been found that the power used by each drying segment to obtain the desired evaporation can be controlled so that the energy cost incurred by each drying segment within the power adjustment range is as low as possible. The invention makes it possible to control the power range of the dryer units inside the dryer section of the paper machine, for example, the drying cylinders, the air impingement units and the infrared dryers, so that an optimal moisture content or drying power distribution is achieved from the point of view of both quality and total energy consumption. According to the invention, the fine adjustment of evaporation advantageous from the viewpoint of quality and cost is carried out within the segments.
The proportion of drying power allotted to a drying segment to be optimised is, according to the invention, converted into input power for the dryer units within the said segment by utilising a mathematical model of the dryer group and an optimisation programme known as such. By means of physical calculation models describing the operation of the dryer units, such as evaporation and heat transfer, and calculation models describing the cost of the energy forms of the dryer units, the energy costs within each segment can be optimised.
As regards the optimisation of energy costs, it is obviously possible to apply the invention to one entire dryer section and to calculate its optimal control in terms of quality and energy costs.
The measurement data required for the dryer group calculation model can be measured continuously by means of measuring sensors, or some of them may be selected empirically or be set as constants at start-up.
Control relating to the invention can be used for post-start-up control in a stable production situation. During change of grade, the set values of the dryer section are controlled by special control for grade change. The optimisation relating to the invention is preferably begun once the grade change has been made and the quality values for the grade in question are within acceptable limits. The principal aim of the invention is to bring about cost savings by running in a way, which is optimal as such in terms of quality.
It is possible for the operator of the dryer section to change the set values obtained by optimisation and to lock the values desired, whereby only the unlocked energy forms of each drying segment can be optimised as described above. The operator may also determine the drying distribution or the power range manually by forced control.
The principal advantage of the invention can be considered to be the fact that a method for controlling drying which takes into account both quality requirements and cost factorsxe2x80x94particularly the cost of different forms of drying energyxe2x80x94has now been accomplished. The desired final moisture content and quality can be achieved in various ways, that is, the desired final moisture content can be obtained by controlling the power distributed to each drying segment in different ways. Different forms of energy have, however, different cost effects on the implementation of drying. According to the invention, the aim is to allot the drying power to the different dryer units of the drying segment in such a way that the total energy cost for drying is as low as possible. By means of the solution relating to the invention, the drying efficiency can be controlled in an optimal manner with a view to drying costs in all production situations, for all paper grades and at all production rates.
The drying control relating to the invention can be arranged to be automatically adjustable. By means of the calculation model, optimal control values can be set for the energy inputs of the drying segments automatically, which means that the process is under controlled drying in all running situations.
The control method relating to the invention also makes it possible for the entire drying process to be observed on the screen by the process controller better than before, and it is thus under good control.